Apply a professional look to your drawings with themes

A theme in Visio is a set of colors and effects that you can apply to a drawing with a single click. Themes are a quick way to give your drawings a professionally designed look.

Apply a theme

On the Design tab, in the Themes group, click the More arrow
.

Hold your mouse pointer over a theme to see a preview on the drawing page.

Click the theme to apply it.

Clicking a theme applies it either to the current page or to all pages in your drawing, depending on the option setting. To change the setting, right-click a theme, and then click Apply to Current Page or Apply to All Pages.

Quick tips:

To remove the current theme from all shapes, on the Design tab, in the Themes group, click No Theme.

To remove the theme from selected shapes, on the Home tab, in the Shape Styles group, click Remove Theme.

Some themes also contain a background color. To apply the new background color with the theme, on the Design tab, in the Backgrounds group, click Backgrounds and select the background that you want.

If you don’t want the theme background color to appear when you print, click File > Print > Print All Pages (or the first button under Settings), and then click No Background.

After you apply a theme, that theme is applied to any shapes you add to the drawing. To temporarily disable this functionality, in the Themes group, click More
, and then clear the Apply Theme to New Shapes selection.

Prevent themes from affecting a shape

You may not want a theme to apply to every shape in a drawing. For example, if you have a traffic sign in your drawing, you probably do not want its fill color or pattern to change when you apply a theme.

To prevent themes from applying to a specific shape, you can either not allow themes for that shape or you can protect the shape from theme colors or theme effects.

Not allow themes for a shape

Select the shape.

On the Home tab, in the Shape Styles group, click More
, and then clear the Allow Themes check box.

Use a text, line, or fill color that doesn't change with the theme

Select the shape.

Do one of the following:

On the Home tab, in the Shape Styles group, click Fill or Line, and then select one of the colors under Standard Colors.

On the Home tab, in the Font group, click the Font Color
button, and then select one of the colors under Standard Colors.